Reading Reflection 1
The overall goal of any educational program should be to meet the needs of students so it is possible to achieve academic growth. Education for the gifted and talented (G/T) should be no different. Davidson County schools (DCS) does currently have a G/T program in place. In fact, DCS uses three different pathways to identify G/T learners, but is it enough to sustain a program for high potential students? It is extremely important the program does not become stagnant. Students are always changing, so our G/T programs need to change with them in order to meet their needs. How is DCS evaluating the effectiveness of our G/T program? In my opinion, one of the main issues in our school system, is the identification …show more content…
Now that he’s older, our joke is that he’s currently a 35 year-old trapped in a 9 year-old’s body. He always sought the company of adults, and could carry on meaningful conversations with adults and much older children. Likewise, our son also has a highly developed sense of humor, and he seems insatiably curious at times. At 12 months old, he was talking in complete sentences, at 18 months old, he could identify every letter of the alphabet, and at the ripe age of 3.5, I have video of him reading Dr. Seuss’s “One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish”. Therefore, it seems with all of those characteristics, it should have been easy for any teacher to identify him as gifted, but in retrospect it wasn’t easy. You see, he is twice-exceptional. Not only did he score in the 99th percentile in verbal comprehension, but he also has dysgraphia, tendencies of ADHD (we don’t want him labeled), and he suffers from anxiety. At times his anxiety can be crippling, and is often directly related to perfectionism. Additionally, our son is extremely motivated, highly sensitive, overly critical of himself (at times), and he is reflective. He has never liked to color, draw, paint, or perform any grapho-motor tasks. However, at 3 years old, after seeing a commercial of someone playing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, he turned to the toy piano in the living room, and played “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” for me. He’s had the ability to assemble (and disassemble) the tiniest of Legos since he was three. Contrarily, he can’t write his name on a line without floating letters, and he doesn’t adhere to margins. While in kindergarten, I captured video of my son adding and subtracting integers, mentally. When most children come home from school, they want to play outside, with toys, or games, but when my son came home, he wanted to research the vampire squid, and other marine life. We suspected there
The overall goal of any educational program should be to meet the needs of students so it is possible to achieve academic growth. Education for the gifted and talented (G/T) should be no different. Davidson County schools (DCS) does currently have a G/T program in place. In fact, DCS uses three different pathways to identify G/T learners, but is it enough to sustain a program for high potential students? It is extremely important the program does not become stagnant. Students are always changing, so our G/T programs need to change with them in order to meet their needs. How is DCS evaluating the effectiveness of our G/T program? In my opinion, one of the main issues in our school system, is the identification …show more content…
Now that he’s older, our joke is that he’s currently a 35 year-old trapped in a 9 year-old’s body. He always sought the company of adults, and could carry on meaningful conversations with adults and much older children. Likewise, our son also has a highly developed sense of humor, and he seems insatiably curious at times. At 12 months old, he was talking in complete sentences, at 18 months old, he could identify every letter of the alphabet, and at the ripe age of 3.5, I have video of him reading Dr. Seuss’s “One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish”. Therefore, it seems with all of those characteristics, it should have been easy for any teacher to identify him as gifted, but in retrospect it wasn’t easy. You see, he is twice-exceptional. Not only did he score in the 99th percentile in verbal comprehension, but he also has dysgraphia, tendencies of ADHD (we don’t want him labeled), and he suffers from anxiety. At times his anxiety can be crippling, and is often directly related to perfectionism. Additionally, our son is extremely motivated, highly sensitive, overly critical of himself (at times), and he is reflective. He has never liked to color, draw, paint, or perform any grapho-motor tasks. However, at 3 years old, after seeing a commercial of someone playing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, he turned to the toy piano in the living room, and played “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” for me. He’s had the ability to assemble (and disassemble) the tiniest of Legos since he was three. Contrarily, he can’t write his name on a line without floating letters, and he doesn’t adhere to margins. While in kindergarten, I captured video of my son adding and subtracting integers, mentally. When most children come home from school, they want to play outside, with toys, or games, but when my son came home, he wanted to research the vampire squid, and other marine life. We suspected there